Every Fifty Years
by Zero Harmony
Summary: It is said that that every fifty years the devil comes down to Mobius, and when he does he has an offer to make. Rated for brief mention of blood.
1. Every Fifty Years

**Every Fifty Years**

_It is said that every fifty years the devil comes down to Mobius. _

"What are you? What do you want?" Gerald Robotnik demanded of the apparition floating before him. The aged scientist trembled in his chair, his mind burdened by months of unrelenting research and failed projects. Surely that had made him hallucinate and created this unholy image.

_It is said that the devil has no tail, no ears, and no fur, and that his form was similar yet abhorrent to all races._

The creature's skin was as black as sin, its three eyes were bestial yellow, its hands were too large and too symmetrical, its robes were the color of ash and trimmed in a poisonous yellow, the metal sigils that hung from its shoulders were cosmic and arcane, its monstrous horns sprouted from the side of its head and curved towards the ground, it hung in the air as it watched Gerald because it had no legs, _and it had no mouth yet it spoke._

"I am Black Doom, Lord of the Black Arms and Master of the Black Comet."

_It is said the devil comes to the parents of a child with an incurable illness. _

"Your grand-daughter is ill, is she not?" Black Doom said in a rasping, almost human voice.

_It is said that the devil offers the ultimate temptation: to save the child's life, in exchange for making the child his servant when he returns fifty years later. _

"You are working on a project to find a cure for her, but you have encountered difficulties." Gerald shook in fear as the thing calmly described things it should not know. "But if you agree for her to serve me, for her to collect a mere seven rocks when I return, I can save her life."

_It is said sometimes that the parents refuse, and have their child healed by God for their faith. Others stories, however, have them accept._

"What will it take?" Gerald asked. He might be making a deal with a monster but he would do _anything_ to save Maria.

_It is said that the devil puts his very lifeblood into the child_

"A small transfusion of my blood is all that it will take to heal her." Black Doom responded.

_It is said that every parent is horrified by it. _

"No!" Gerald exclaimed. Even if he wasn't seeing it or hearing it he could feel how wrong the thing was, as if reality itself was twisted by its presence. "I- I can't." Gerald continued, sobbing in fear of the monster. "She's too pure. I could never..." He couldn't even finish the sentence.

_It is said that the devil manipulates and cajoles the parents into going along with his wishes. _

"I see no other way to save her. None of your projects have succeeded, and even when given an answer you refuse it based upon some superstition." Black Doom rasped out, somehow sincere and mocking in the same sentence.

"No." Gerald whispered. "There's still one project left, a hedgehog."

"You will use him in my stead? Tell yourself that the blood he gives to her is not mine?"

"I will control the process!" Gerald hissed back, surprising the monster with his sudden aggression. "I will only give Maria a perfect cure and nothing less!"

"I offered a perfect cure." Black Doom, regaining his composure.

"You didn't know that, not for certain." Gerald barked back. Black Doom paused, his thoughts indiscernible, before continuing.

"Very well, we shall use the hedgehog, your final 'Ultimate Life-form'." It said. Somehow, Gerald wasn't sure he had won.

_It is said that when the child is given the devil's blood, its fur turns as black as ash and its eyes as red as blood. _

Gerald looked in shock at the now black and red hedgehog. "W-what? Something happened to his melanin levels, it's-"

"Cease your babbling, it is but a unavoidable side affect." Black Doom said, watching Gerald's creation from the other side of the artificial womb. Gerald kept his head straight but in his mind affirmed that he had made the right choice. The idea of letting those brilliant blue eyes and golden hairs be corrupted by this abomination was the most vile thing Gerald could imagine. After a few minutes the monster backed away from the artificial womb.

"What?" Gerald asked.

_It is said that when he finishes his work the devil leaves the same way as he arrived, stopping once to remind the child's parents of the price they payed for their child's life: _

"My part in this is over." Black Doom said. "He should finish development on his own in a short time, four months at the longest." Turning, the abomination began to leave the room. "I will return for my payment in fifty years."

"Yes, the rocks." Gerald said glad that this nightmare was almost over, and with such a light price in the end. "If you want, we have plenty of samples in the geology labs..." The monster paused and turned to look back at Gerald

"No, they're a rather... Unique set of stones, very hard to find. And my plans will go more smoothly if they are gathered all at once."

"What are they?" Gerald asked, already knowing the answer and fearing it.

"There are very few words to describe them. The name I prefer is... " Black Doom began.

_The child's soul. _

"Chaos Emeralds." Gerald shook with fear as the abomination said those two simple words. With the supposedly infinite power of the Chaos Emeralds, what good intent could Black Doom have?

"No!" Gerald yelled, trying to stand up against the monster. "I never agreed to such a price and you know it." Black Doom openly chuckled in his inhuman voice.

"But you agreed to my contract, and that is enough for my needs. You are bound by my blood, and when I return I will have the emeralds one way or another. Thank you, 'Gerald', for with your help I am one step closer to bringing a final judgement to this forsaken world!" Black Doom's laughter echoed throughout the chamber as he faded away, haunting Gerald until long after the alien was gone.


	2. The Devil's Medicine

**The Devils Medicine**

A Mobian Fairy Tale

_It is said that every fifty years the devil comes down to Mobius. _

_It is said that the devil has no tail, no ears, and no fur, and that his form was similar yet abhorrent to all races._

_It is said the devil comes to the parents of a child with an incurable illness. _

_It is said that the devil offers the ultimate temptation: to save the child's life, in exchange for making the child his servant when he returns fifty years later. _

_It is said sometimes that the parents refuse, and have their child healed by God for their faith. Others stories, however, have them accept._

_It is said that the devil puts his very lifeblood into the child_

_It is said that every parent is horrified by it. _

_It is said that the devil manipulates and cajoles the parents into going along with his wishes. _

_It is said that when the child is given the devil's blood, its fur turns as black as ash and its eyes as red as blood. _

_It is said that when he finishes his work the devil leaves the same way as he arrived, stopping once to remind the child's parents of the price they payed for their child's life: _

_The child's soul. _

OOOOOOOOOO

Once upon a time, long before the humans came, a cat and his wife lived on the seashore. The husband was named Solis, and he was known throughout the village as the strongest and most noble of the fisherman, able to haul nets full of fish by himself and never having said one ill word in his life. His wife was named Luna, who everyone agreed was the fairest and gentlest mobian the world had ever seen. It was even rumored that princes and lords from all across the land had come to ask for her hand, but she had gracefully made clear to each one that she only loved Solis, and every one of them left happier than they had arrived.

Thus it was such that when the village heard that Luna was with child they all expected a strong son like the father or a beautiful daughter like the mother. And so when the girl with soft golden fur and shining blue eyes was born everyone was in awe of its beauty, not realizing what cruel fate the child had been born into.

From the very moment of the child's birth it was deathly ill, and the village doctor was forced to constantly work just to keep it alive. But whenever he managed to cure the child of one disease, a new one would soon come in and take the old disease's place. The whole village grieved for the child and for its parents, who had clearly never done anything to deserve such a fate. Some thought for a little time that the child could not be Solis's and Luna's, but they knew both were too pure to lie about the child's identity.

After four months of constant struggle, the doctor found himself too weak to keep working, and with much grief in his heart gave the child back to its parents, telling them to love it while they could because it could never survive the winter. Solis and Luna shut themselves away inside their house, never leaving their child's side as they waited for it to finally pass on, living only on the food their neighbors sent them.

And then, after a week of this hermitage, the Night of the Fire in the Sky came. This most unholy of nights only comes every fifty years, and is the one night that the devil is let out of his prison, riding across the sky in his flaming chariot made of brimstone and bones. On this night everyone locks themselves away and covers their doors and windows with the holiest symbols they know, hoping to keep the devil's dark corruption away from them. On this night the devil came down to Mobius.

Possessed by grief as they were, Solis and Luna had forgotten to ward their house against the devil, and thus it was that he could approach their house with ease. He knocked upon the door, and Solis answered it, only seeing a tall man wearing a dark cloak. The man asked for entrance, and Solis gave it, never one to deny a weary traveler rest. One he had crossed their threshold with Solis's permission, the devil shed the cloak made of shadows and showed the the cats his true form. Three yellow eyes stared from his horn-crowned head, and his black skin not covered by his curse laden robes had not a single hair of fur upon it. Solis and Luna recoiled in horror as they realized who they had let in.

"Why do you recoil in horror?" The devil said, beginning to lay his trap. "I come to heal, not to harm. To see you so unfairly given such a wretched child, and yet still love it with all your heart, touched me where no other love has before. I come to heal your child, cure it of this infinite illness so unfairly afflicted upon it at birth, and let it grow to become as strong as it should have been."

Solis and Luna were shocked by this pronouncement, not understanding what it could possibly mean. It was Luna who finally responded to the devil's offering.

"That is more kindness than I could ever expect from a person." She said. "Please, would you want something in return?" The devil bowed his head in false shame and spoke his next part.

"It is sad, but nothing a person can do can be done for free. If I am to heal your child, I will need it to serve me when I return fifty years from now, doing a small favor that I cannot do myself if I stay here for tonight." Both Solis and Luna became concerned as they heard the price. Their daughter's life for her service when she had grown old and would be living the last of her life? In quiet they talked long and hard about what they should do, but in the end they made their choice. For their sake, let it be said for all time that what they did they only did for love of their child.

"Devil, we accept your offer."

"Very well! There is no time to lose." The devil exclaimed the moment he heard Solis speak. "Another hour and your child would be gone, I assure you, you've made the right choice." The devil swooped over to where the child lay, taking it into his arms.

"How will you heal her?" Luna asked.

"With my blood in her veins." The devil replied.

"How is that healing her?" Solis cried out in rage, the first he had ever felt in his life.

"Blood is little more than water." The devil declared. "It is still her body, her mind, her soul, but with my blood she will be alive." Saying that the devil cut his finger and let his blood pour into a cup, and then fed the blood to the child, delighting in the parent's horror all the while. Then he set the child back into the cradle and watched as her golden fur turned as black as ash, and her once brilliant blue eyes became the color of blood.

"It is done, her soul is mine!" the devil cried in victory. "How can she serve me if I do not own her soul."

"No, you cannot have it." Solis yelled, putting himself between the devil and his daughter.

"But we made a deal." The devil said.

"I did not accept these terms." Solis replied.

"If you wish to break our contract then so be it: You forfeit your price, and I forfeit mine." With a single gesture of his hand the devil froze his blood inside the child's vein, stopping its heart in an instant. "You were foolish to make a deal you did not understand, and now you have paid the price." the devil said. Without another word he left the house, returning to his chariot to ride the rest of the night away, before he once more had to return to his prison, where he would wait for fifty more years before he returned to Mobius again.

As dawn came the villagers went to the house of Solis and Luna, only to find everyone inside dead, Solis's and Luna's hearts broken by the death of their child.


End file.
